Endorsement deals made easier for UTRGV athletes

The UTRGV Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announced Oct. 4 an open agreement with NOCAP Sports in which student athletes are able to use the marketing platform to facilitate endorsement deals on their name, image and likeness (NIL).

NOCAP Sports is a marketing platform that is a portal for collegiate athletes who want to use their NIL for marketing opportunities from major brands and companies looking to sign endorsement deals with them. 

“I think it’s an exciting first step in providing some tools and resources for our student athletes to venture into this new world of name, image and likeness,” said Nathan Burk, senior associate athletic director for Compliance and Administration. “For so long in the NCAA, it’s been, you know, very black and white marred by rules on what student athletes are and are not able to receive, and anything that they receive beyond just, you know, benefits from the university was, you know, forbidden. And so, now that that’s opened up, it’s a new world for the student athletes.” 

Burk said NOCAP offers a variety of benefits for student athletes and businesses that want to use the platform. From having all contracts and agreement documents sent through the platform, it can facilitate business transactions, makes sure the endorsement deal is aligned with Texas law and institutional policy and can help students with filing taxes, social media branding and financial literacy. 

All of this comes at no cost to the student athlete, Burk said. 

“NOCAP would never take away from the deal,” he said. “So, if a student athlete signs a deal for $100 to publicize, let’s say, a local restaurant, and they say, ‘OK, we’re gonna take $100 and by doing that you agree to post, you know, one time per week for X amount of weeks about our restaurant.’ … So, that was an important aspect for us to make sure that we weren’t, you know, mandating something that would take money out of their own pocket.” 

Student athletes have the option to not use NOCAP Sports for endorsement deals but will have to facilitate all aspects of the deal on their own or through a different company. 

Elizabeth “Liz” Ortiz, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee president and Track & Field team junior, told The Rider she thinks the open agreement between UTRGV Athletics and NOCAP is a great opportunity, especially with the idea of endorsement deals being a new thing for college athletes. 

“NOCAP will be that starting point in allowing student athletes to get their actual brand out there,” Ortiz said.  “And I think sometimes, we need that extra little push to just put ourselves out there and this NOCAP deal will do exactly that.”

She said she is in the process of making an account on NOCAP to brand herself. 

Asked how other UTRGV athletes feel about this, Ortiz replied, “I think they’re really excited. Like I said, we a lot of times don’t know where to start, and I think kind of get overwhelmed with a lot that’s going on in athletics because we do balance so much.”

She said the platform is easier to use and feels more professional than having someone “slide into your DM’s.” 

Chasse Conque, vice president and director of Athletics, said NOCAP is a good platform that the department has invested time and research in to make sure it found the right platform to bring to the university and student athletes. 

“I think this is a space that is going to evolve a lot over the next year, two years, five years, 20 years, but we had to start somewhere, and it’s happened really fast,” Conque said. “So, the Texas state law set some guidelines for us. So, in that, there’s some things that we have already started to do and will continue to do and one of those pieces is education and making sure we’re educating our student athletes.” 

He said the Athletics department has mandatory sessions for student athletes and calls them “life-skill sessions,” with topics ranging from fiscal responsibilities, money management and paying loans. The next session will be about the NOCAP platform and tax forms on Nov. 15.   

Asked if endorsement deals from the community will bring more people to UTRGV games or events, Conque replied, “Yeah, it certainly can.” 

 “There’s a lot of things that our student athletes can possibly help those businesses [accomplish], but I think that those businesses certainly have traditionally helped us in athletics and can help bring awareness to our young people that represent the Vaqueros,” he said.